Affirmative action: US Supreme Court overturns race-based college admissions

[Bobby_2021]

Affirmative action: US Supreme Court overturns race-based college admissions

No more race based admission in college.  These affirmative action policies always disgusted me. Right from removal of gifted programs for kids to race(or caste based here in India), affirmative action policies are kind of secretly racist.

If this does not sound racist to you I do not know what will.

Affirmative action policies are discriminatory to students who work hard and excel. They prioritize kids who belong to 40 percentile over meritorious students from 90 percentile. Several Asian students who reported near perfect scores in SAT were left depressed because their scores were not enough for them to make into Ivy leagues. 

Affirmative action is never a stage yellow policy to overcome the oppression of the past. It is a knee jerk green reactionary policy (including the removal of gifted programs). The problem with admitting with students with weak scores is that they cannot keep up with the rigid curriculum ,so they tend to drop out or underperform since they are surrounded by over achieving counterparts. This is weird and humiliating in many levels. It is humiliating and depressing for the kids who get admitted into elite schools and for those who could not get into elite schools despite having meritorious scores.

What could be a stage yellow level policy that could replace affirmative action?

Thoughts.

[DocWatts]

The problem hasn't been Affirmative Action per se, so much as basing it on race alone rather than a person's overall socio-economic status. Race is just one dimension of how advantaged or disadvantaged a person is, a smart Yellow policy would target it towards communities that lack access to support systems for social mobility (which in the US would of course include poor inner cities that are predominantly non-white, but also rural areas that have been underserved and neglected).

'Merit' based systems are only fair when people have access to reasonably equitable opportunities to self actualize, which the US has sadly been failing at. 

Unfortunately in the US affirmative action for privileged people still exists, in the form of legacy admissions (ie 'your daddy went to Harvard so you get to go to Harvard', which is just a gross form of nepotism). And of course the decision that was reached by this reactionary Supreme Court doesn't touch nepotistic affirmative action for the affluent. It just hurts people from disadvantaged communities without doing anything to actually address the problems that gave rise to the well meaning but flawed Green knee-jerk reaction that is races based affirmative action.

Edited June 30, 2023 by DocWatts

[something_else]

Quote

'Merit' based systems are only fair when people have access to reasonably equitable opportunities to self actualize, which the US has sadly been failing at. 

This is the crux of the issue.

If you are born with poor parents into a poor neighbourhood with bad educational resources (statistically far more likely if you are black for example) then how is a merit based system fair for you? The kid who was born with rich parents into a rich neighbourhood with a top notch elementary + high school education is going to out-merit you, not because of his own skill or because he is better than you, but simply because he had a better education than you from a young age.

@Bobby_2021 So how do we account for this?  What is your proposed solution that is better than affirmative action?

[DieFree]

I don't see how affirmative action is not stage yellow.

What's disgusting to me is not colleges and professional skills seeking out minority candidates, it's the grossly unfair advantages they give to connected kids.

 

[Raze]

12 hours ago, something_else said:

This is the crux of the issue.

If you are born with poor parents into a poor neighbourhood with bad educational resources (statistically far more likely if you are black for example) then how is a merit based system fair for you? The kid who was born with rich parents into a rich neighbourhood with a top notch elementary + high school education is going to out-merit you, not because of his own skill or because he is better than you, but simply because he had a better education than you from a young age.

@Bobby_2021 So how do we account for this?  What is your proposed solution that is better than affirmative action?

If you were going to heart surgery would you rather the surgeon be the one with the best education and grades or the surgeon who had worse grades and performance but got in for compensation for his poorer upbringing?

[Bobby_2021]

15 hours ago, DocWatts said:

The problem hasn't been Affirmative Action per se, so much as basing it on race alone rather than a person's overall socio-economic status. Race is just one dimension of how advantaged or disadvantaged a person is, a smart Yellow policy would target it towards communities that lack access to support systems for social mobility (which in the US would of course include poor inner cities that are predominantly non-white, but also rural areas that have been underserved and neglected).

You are assuming that everyone deserves an equal playing field, in terms of money. That is not the definition of a meritocratic society.

Meritocratic society will reward anyone who makes the right choices, works hard and have talent. Period.

Anyone who works hard and have talent will be rewarded with upward mobility. Do you think Asians had more wealth than the straight white men initially? Asian men and women face plenty of racism, even today. Despite all of that, after coming to US with nothing in their hands, they have managed to amass more wealth than white men. To hit the point hard home, Asian women's earnings is already at par or even more than white men at this point. This can only happen in a meritocratic society. 

Because they made the right choices and worked hard and suffered. And they teach their children to make the right choices as well. So of course they will also make more money and wealth which will have a compounding effect over the generations. The mistake you make is to think that wealthy people's kids got into elite colleges because they were wealthy. But the reason they got wealthy is because they made the right choices. Talking about Asians here. 

Note that all this happened while they face real racism and discrimination in the US, media who portrays us them nerdy and unsociable geeks.

Never ever in history will we ever reach a point where every child born will be "equal" to everyone else because some people will always make stupid choices and the effects of these choices will compound over time. So theoretically, if you wipe of all the wealth in the world and start from a clean slate, we would end up in the same unequal society we have today. This kind of equal opportunity notion is a leftist fallacy. It is impossible for a perfect society to exist by the laws of physics and nature. Fundamental reason being people are so different. Blank slate theory egalitarianism is a fallacy.

15 hours ago, DocWatts said:

'Merit' based systems are only fair when people have access to reasonably equitable opportunities to self actualize, which the US has sadly been failing at. 

If the US is failing at that then a yellow level policy should be focused on solving this equality of opportunity. 

15 hours ago, DocWatts said:

Unfortunately in the US affirmative action for privileged people still exists, in the form of legacy admissions (ie 'your daddy went to Harvard so you get to go to Harvard', which is just a gross form of nepotism). And of course the decision that was reached by this reactionary Supreme Court doesn't touch nepotistic affirmative action for the affluent. It just hurts people from disadvantaged communities without doing anything to actually address the problems that gave rise to the well meaning but flawed Green knee-jerk reaction that is races based affirmative action.

They do not get admitted for free. You need money to fund the research and activates that happen in these schools. A couple of admissions from the wealthy will help these institutions focus on long term research activates that may not generate any immediate returns. I do not support it. But you got to get the funding somehow. If you can get the funding, some other way then we can completely do away with legacy admissions.

Alumna endowments comes at a cost. Again, I do not support legacy admissions and it is anti meritocratic and should be scrapped. 

But you need to keep the money flowing somehow.

[Bobby_2021]

6 hours ago, Raze said:

If you were going to heart surgery would you rather the surgeon be the one with the best education and grades or the surgeon who had worse grades and performance but got in for compensation for his poorer upbringing?

This question really hit the nail. Everyone wants top quality doctors, medicines and preferably free, but high quality services. But when it comes to developing these things and the infrastructure needed for it they come up with weird arguments like that of equality of opportunity.

15 hours ago, something_else said:

This is the crux of the issue.

If you are born with poor parents into a poor neighbourhood with bad educational resources (statistically far more likely if you are black for example) then how is a merit based system fair for you? The kid who was born with rich parents into a rich neighbourhood with a top notch elementary + high school education is going to out-merit you, not because of his own skill or because he is better than you, but simply because he had a better education than you from a young age.

If you grew up in a tribe in some forest, you are simply not fit to be trained in a top notch medical/engineering school. It is simply that.

Exclusivity is required for excellence. 

And if equality of opportunity is the sole determinant of outcomes, then how would you explain the Asians outperforming the whites, despite not having all these privileges you talk about initially. As of now even the earnings of Asian women are growing higher than that of white men! That should tell you a lot. And the kids of these families will definitely get into elite schools by their own merit anyway. It is just that they have the added advantage of having hardworking financially literate parents. 

The problem is in thinking that everyone deserves a seat in elite schools. Sad to tell you that cannot happen. We can only do that by undermining the hard work of other minorities like Asians who now have to work even more harder. All of this while degrading the quality of the schools, since candidates with higher scores are more likely to finish the education and keep at their jobs. 

[Bobby_2021]

I will tell my only yellow policy to replace affirmative action for all those who are interested.

1. Make education easy. 

Fix the syllabus of SAT exams and other standardized tests. Hire the most brilliant PHD professors and start a YouTube channel where you cover literally everything that could be possibly asked in the syllabus of that exam. This should be relatively easy to do. You may need to hire 10 professors at best. This could help prepare the students from across the world who may not have access to this education.

This is what technology should be used for. Plenty of high quality YT channels exist anyway, incase you should focus on the next step. 

2. Educational Infrastructure.

Make sure that high speed internet is accessible in neighborhoods with poor minorities. Every kids should have access to a laptop. The internet is the gateway to the world. The internet has all the information you need to train and free courses that you can choose from. Make this as much accessible as reasonably possible. This is not that cheap like starting a YouTube channel, but if the government has any interest in the welfare of minorities they should take action like building infrastructure which is obviously difficult rather than passing laws making it easier for mediocre students to get into elite schools.

3. More Gifted programs.

Realize that kids are not sheep and one size fits all solution doesn't work. Some kids have higher IQ, curiosity, energy levels etc. Start more gifted programs in schools. Allow talented kids to progress through the ranks faster. A 130 IQ student should not have to study the materials designed for 105 IQ students. Blank slate theory should be exposed and dumbed for the scham that it is. 

4. Allow upward mobility for everyone one step at a time.

A kids who grew up in a tribe in a forest is not fit to join a top school. Then build a school which is specifically meant for minorities and people from underprivileged backgrounds and help them progress one level at a time. This may include teaching them about a relevant trade or even blue collar work if that is necessary. This is the yellow policy of meeting people where they are at. That could be more helpful for them.

5. Not all differences are caused due to racism or systemic racism

If racism and privilege mattered Asians would not outperform whites in standardized test scores, income and affluence. Some people make the right choice will be rewarded by the system. People who make poor choices will not be rewarded. unequal playing ground is not a bug. It is a feature. Society needs to guarantee  a basic level of educational attainment opportunity for all. You cannot equalize the results for people who made shitty choices by ripping off  the people who made better choices.

 

[something_else]

7 hours ago, Raze said:

If you were going to heart surgery would you rather the surgeon be the one with the best education and grades or the surgeon who had worse grades and performance but got in for compensation for his poorer upbringing?

Once you get into medical school, everyone has to meet the same criteria to pass and become a doctor.

As long as they pass those tests, I don’t care how they did in high school or if they got any assistance or compensation for a shitty upbringing.

Edited July 1, 2023 by something_else

[Bobby_2021]

6 hours ago, something_else said:

As long as they pass those tests

The whole point is that they are not privileged enough to study and pass those exams. If they can med school test, then they can also pass test before med school. That's why we need affirmative action. What's your point? 

Students from these "oppressed communities"  drop out of schools much more than other races. Which is also wasting the precious seats and resources that were allocated to teach them. If it was based purely on merit this wouldn't have happened, atleast not to the extend it is happening now. 

[Leo Gura]

Affirmative action has been banned in California for 20 years. Just think about that.

What are progressives crying about?

Edited July 1, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Raze]

12 hours ago, something_else said:

Once you get into medical school, everyone has to meet the same criteria to pass and become a doctor.

As long as they pass those tests, I don’t care how they did in high school or if they got any assistance or compensation for a shitty upbringing.

That only promises basic competency. There is absolutely a difference in a person personal ability and experience.

The gist of your original comment was not understanding the difference between equal opportunity and equal outcome. Equal opportunity makes logical sense because it allows everyone a chance to demonstrate their ability so the best is chosen. It should not about “representation”, it should be about the practical reality of what gets results.

Would a poorer person have less of a chance and less resources and possibly end up doing worse? Yes, but that doesn’t mean they should get some boost in hiring or acceptance for “equality”, that doesn’t make them any more competent which is what matters.

[DocWatts]

21 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Affirmative action has been banned in California for 20 years. Just think about that.

What are progressives crying about?

Race based affirmative action always seemed to me like a really clumsy way of trying to address gross inequality of opportunity here in the States. I've long thought that income and location based affirmative action would make a lot more sense, if the goal of affirmative action has been to provide opportunities for social mobility to those who got dealt a shit hand in the birth lottery. Obviously it doesn't address the root causes of education inequality, but that's outside the scope of what a university admissions board can hope to remedy.

My concern is that rather than reforming race based affirmative action into a system that makes more sense for the world we happen to be living in now, in many cases it will be replaced with nothing. Making a system that's already rife with inequality of opportunity even worse.

And the fact that the Supreme Court decision bans race based affirmative action and leaves nepostic legacy admissions in place is the cherry on top of the shit rulings the SCOTUS has been making.

Edited July 1, 2023 by DocWatts

[Jacob Morres]

@Bobby_2021 I've a friend like that actually. Scored perfectly on all medschool exams (step 1, step2, all that jazz) and got rejected by most programs despite being #1 in his class. Ended up at an average school 

 

Edited July 1, 2023 by Jacob Morres

[Leo Gura]

One of the best things that could ever happen to you is getting rejected by one of these Ivy League idiot schools.

The whole Ivy League system is run by corrupt human fools.

Going to Harvard or MIT is a curse I would not wish upon my children.

Seek a decent education but do not chase after status. Status has nothing to do with proper education. People have utterly lost sense of their priorities in chasing these Ivy Leagues. It's embrassing. You should feel better about telling Harvard to go fuck themselves than actually going there. If you don't, you got things backwards. Have some respect for yourself, for fuck's sake.

Edited July 1, 2023 by Leo Gura

[thenondualtankie]

Sounds like someone got rejected by MIT.

[Leo Gura]

38 minutes ago, thenondualtankie said:

Sounds like someone got rejected by MIT.

And I thank GOD I did. What a racket. Dodged a bullet there.

Compare me to Lex Fridman and you see the clear difference. I would kill myself before trading places with him.

7 minutes ago, Jacob Morres said:

@Leo Gura  ivy league has so much clout it sets you up heavily for life tho

That's the whole problem. The definition of corruption.

Edited July 2, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Hardkill]

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

One of the best things that could ever happen to you is getting rejected by one of these Ivy League idiot schools.

The whole Ivy League system is run by corrupt human fools.

Going to Harvard or MIT is a curse I would not wish upon my children.

Seek a decent education but do not chase after status. Status has nothing to do with proper education. People have utterly lost sense of their priorities in chasing these Ivy Leagues. It's embrassing. You should feel better about telling Harvard to go fuck themselves than actually going there. If you don't, you got things backwards. Have some respect for yourself, for fuck's sake.

Well, I hope this doesn't sound presumptuous, but I think that the Public Ivies have truly become the best colleges/universities in the entire USA. This is further going to come off as me being rather boastful, but I myself graduated from UCLA, which has become arguably become tied with UC Berkeley for being the best public university in America and is now undoubtedly equally as hard to get accepted into as virtually any of original Ivy League schools.

The Public Ivies offer the very same level of top collegiate experience as that of any of the OG Ivy League schools. However, because Public Ivies are public and more down to earth, I think that they are better than the OG Ivy League schools, because the former are not nearly expensive and probably not as corrupt as the latter.

Plus, schools such as UCLA, Cal, and other UC schools have much better connections to the visual and performing arts industries and entertainment industries than any of the original Ivies do.I think that other UC schools such as UCI and UC san Diego seem to be on there way to one day becoming as hard to get into as UCLA, Berkeley, or any of the other top Ivies are.

the US Military Academy at West Point, US Naval Academy, United States Air Force Academy, are the three top undergraduate military institutions that are equally as hard to get into as any of the original Ivies, and in some ways deserve much more respect than any Ivy. While US Coast Guard and U.S. Merchant Marine Academy are not quite as hard to get into as the Army, Navy, and Air Force academies are, they are still highly competitive and also deserve tremendous respect. 

There are many other public colleges/universities out there in the US that are rising to the top with regard to both prestige and difficulty of getting accepted into.

As for MIT and Caltech, I don't think that they are as pretentious as any of the original Ivies and they are extremely respectable, but the collegiate experiences there are pretty boring, and most people in those school are of course nerdy. 

USC, another school, I graduated from for my Master's degree, is a private university that of course rivals UCLA in almost every way. 

Furthermore, there are also many other private universities such as Tufts University, that are about as reputable and as hard to get into as any Ivy school in the country.

 

Edited July 2, 2023 by Hardkill

[Hardkill]

16 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

And I thank GOD I did. What a racket. Dodged a bullet there.

Compare me to Lex Fridman and you see the clear difference. I would kill myself before trading places with him.

That's the whole problem. The definition of corruption.

But many true geniuses such as Einstein, Socrates, Noam Chomsky, Mozart, Leonardo Da Vinci, Picasso, etc. all went to and taught at top universities including MIT, Caltech, Harvard, Princeton, and many other prestigious colleges/universities. So, did all of them become grossly corrupt?

Edited July 2, 2023 by Hardkill

[Sucuk Ekmek]

2 hours ago, Hardkill said:

But many true geniuses such as Einstein, Socrates, Noam Chomsky, Mozart, Leonardo, Picasso, Da Vinci, all went to and taught at top universities including MIT, Caltech, Harvard, Princeton, and many other prestigious colleges/universities. So, did all of them become grossly corrupt?

Socrates never went to university. His disciple Plato founded academia.  Academia and university are rival institutions, university favor closed universe model like Aristoteles school ,meanwhile academia favors open universe model. 

and Socates never taught anything, he perhaps just frustrated people, in Plato's dialogues we see him engaging with noble youths of Athens.

In fact in these dialogues Socrates says that in his youth he was taught "the philosophy of love" by Diotima, a female figure...